
==== Front
J Educ Health Promot
J Educ Health Promot
JEHP
J Edu Health Promot
Journal of Education and Health Promotion
2277-9531
2319-6440
Wolters Kluwer - Medknow India

JEHP-13-96
10.4103/jehp.jehp_615_23
Review Article
Bibliometric study of the scientific productivity of the COVID-19 impact on constructs affecting happiness in university students
Bedoya-Gonzales María 1
Yucra-Mamani Yudi 1
Aragón-Cruz Walker 1
Barrientos-Paredes Katia 1
Gómez-Bailón Percy 1
Laura-Chauca Sonia 1
Fuentes-López José 2
Flores-Gutiérrez Claudia 3
Cossio-Bolaños Marco 4
Gomez-Campos Rossana 4
1 Instituto de Investigación Social y Empresarial (IDISEM), Universidad Nacional del Altiplano de Puno, Puno, Perú
2 Escuela Profesional de Educación Física, Universidad Nacional del Altiplano, Puno, Perú
3 Departamento Académico de Ciencias y Tecnologías Sociales y Humanidades, Universidad Católica de Santa María, Arequipa, Perú
4 Departamento de Ciencias de la Actividad Física, Universidad Católica del Maule, Talca, Chile
Address for correspondence: Dr. Rossana Gomez-Campos, Av. San Miguel 3605, Talca, Chile. E-mail: rossaunicamp@gmail.com
2024
28 3 2024
13 9605 5 2023
27 11 2023
Copyright: © 2024 Journal of Education and Health Promotion
2024
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/ This is an open access journal, and articles are distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 License, which allows others to remix, tweak, and build upon the work non-commercially, as long as appropriate credit is given and the new creations are licensed under the identical terms.
COVID-19 has caused a wide range of psychological problems, such as panic disorders, anxiety, and depression. Knowing what others have researched on, what constructs they have focused on, will (a) summarize published information, (b) help identify research gaps, and (c) encourage future research that addresses these gaps. The aim of the study was to analyze the bibliometric indicators of scientific productivity of the impact of COVID-19 on constructs affecting undergraduate happiness. A bibliometric study was conducted. The PubMed database was used. Data summarized were: authors, year of publication, journal name, country, language of publication, and subtopic addressed. A total of 16 English-language studies were identified between April 2022 and December 2022. There were 12 countries that have published on the impact of COVID-19 on constructs affecting college students’ happiness. Most of the studies were developed in the United States (n = 4, 25%) and China (n = 2, 12.5%). Thirteen journals publishing these topics were detected. The subtopics considered were organized into nine categories (e.g., a: Psychological impact, b: Adverse childhood experiences, c: Stress, d: Personality traits, e: Perception of the educational environment, f: Spiritual health, g: Distress, h: Uncertainty and socioemotional learning, i: Satisfaction with life). This study suggests that the number of countries and scientific journals that have published on the impact of COVID-19 on constructs affecting college students’ happiness is small. In addition, the most discussed subtopics during the pandemic were related to constructs such as psychological impact and stress affecting college students’ happiness.

Bibliometrics
Covid-19
happiness
students
==== Body
pmcIntroduction

The epidemic of coronavirus disease 2019[1] emerged in Wuhan, China, spread throughout the country and then globally. This epidemic has caused a wide variety of psychological problems, such as panic disorder, anxiety, and depression.[1]

When COVID-19 spread worldwide and, following strict quarantine measures, universities were forced to temporarily close, resulting in abrupt changes in teaching and learning activities.[2]

Many university students were displaced from their dormitories and peer groups and forced to leave campus immediately. In many cases, they are without their belongings and are continuing with their academic work as usual from a distance.[3] Some universities even adopted the approach of resuming academic activities under distance or online teaching methods, while those that lacked resources and/or preparation were advised to delay the semester.[4]

In fact, the implementation of quarantine has kept a large number of people (schoolchildren, university students, teachers, among others) in social isolation around the world. This has caused a profound psychological impact on the general public,[1] going beyond the massive contraction of global economic activities, which also points to the degradation of the quality of health and well-being.[45]

In essence, several studies have recently highlighted that the pandemic has had a negative impact on happiness and life satisfaction in university students.[678] Therefore, it is of interest to study the scientific productivity of the impact of COVID-19 on constructs affecting happiness in this at-risk population.

Happiness is often defined as a feeling or state of satisfaction that resides internally within the individual.[9] Often affecting aspects of happiness are personal, family, and social factors that influence students’ happiness.[10] In fact, in recent years, there has been an ostensible increase in studies in various areas and stages of life, especially in university students.[11]

It is widely known that college students are increasingly recognized as a vulnerable population (before and after the pandemic), suffering from higher levels of anxiety, depression, substance abuse, eating disorders, and suicidal tendencies, especially during the pandemic.[1112] In this context, this review focuses on presenting a description of identified research that addressed the constructs that affected happiness in the university population during the pandemic. This allows for a better understanding of where researchers have focused their attention, what topics were most investigated, what mode of study the university students were in, as well as recognizing gaps that require attention. In this way, it is possible to understand that the impact of COVID-19 was not only on the somatic, social, economic, and cultural spheres, but also on the psychological states of university students. This information is necessary to learn more about what others have researched, what constructs they have focused on, and summarize the published information. Consequently, to be able to develop new resources and strategies that will improve student well-being, as well as encourage future research to address those identified gaps.

Therefore, the aim of the study was to analyze the bibliometric indicators of scientific productivity of the impact of COVID-19 on the constructs that affect happiness in young university students. To achieve the aim of the study, we proposed the following question: What will be the constructs or subthemes identified in the publications that affected the happiness of university students during the COVID-19 pandemic?

Materials and Methods

Data sources and search strategy

The electronic search of this documentary study (bibliometric) was performed in the PubMed database of the National Library of Medicine of the United States (https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/. This database has high coverage of biomedical and life sciences literature. It is also one of the closest to our object of study (happiness). The search strategy was applied during the period between April 2022 and December 2022.

The relevant search terms for this bibliometric review were: (1) Happiness, enjoyment, well-being, joy; (2) university students, young people; (3) isolation, quarantine, confinement; (3) COVID-19, pandemic, severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), coronavirus, virus, disease, and infection. Boolean operators “AND” and “OR” were considered. Initially, all keywords were used together and sorted with the boolean operators. Then, a new search was performed by combining two or three [happiness and university students and COVID-19].

Data management and extraction

The extraction of the scientific productivity indicators was recorded in an observation sheet. For each article, the year of publication, language of publication, mode of study, country of publication (defined as the country of affiliation of the first author), journal name, and happiness-related subtopic were identified.

The indicated terms were searched for in the title, abstract, and keywords of the manuscripts. The following were considered as inclusion criteria: (i) articles that provided the required bibliometric indicators; (ii) peer-reviewed articles; (iii) articles published in English on COVID-19; (iv) articles published during 2021 and 2022. Studies whose topic was not related to happiness and COVID-19 or that involved animal research were excluded from the analysis.

Two of the authors (Marco Cossio and Rossana Gómez) performed the extraction procedure separately, identifying the bibliometric indicators. The information record made was cross-checked by a third observer, who certified the extraction process. If there was no match, the third observer made the pertinent corrections.

Following the proposal of Moher et al.,[13] the guidelines established by Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) were used, which allowed the identification and extraction of data for the review [Figure 1].

Figure 1 Process of screening and selection of records according to the PRISMA (Preferred Reporting Items for Reviews and Meta-Analyses) flowchart

From a total of 63 articles initially identified, 26 studies were eliminated because they were not related to the research topic. In the next stage, the titles and abstracts were read considering the inclusion criteria, and 10 articles were eliminated. Of the 27 eligible studies, in the third stage, literature reviews, systematic reviews, and meta-analyses were excluded. In the last stage, 16 studies were considered and included in the research, from which the general bibliometric matrix was generated.

Data analysis

The organization of the results was carried out through the data collected in the bibliometric matrix using Microsoft Excel spreadsheets. The data were presented in frequencies, ranges, and percentages through tables and graphs.

Results

Table 1 shows the characteristics of the original studies that have been published on the impact of COVID-19 on constructs affecting happiness in young university students. A total of 14 studies were identified that have been conducted on graduate students (88%) and two on postgraduate students (12%). Twelve countries were identified that have published on this topic, and most of them were developed in the United States (n = 4, 25%) and China (n = 2, 12.5%). However, the other countries conducted one study during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Table 1 Characteristics of the identified research used in the study

Author	Journal	Country	Modality	
Year 2021	10	62.50%		
    Browning et al.[12]	PLOS ONE	USA	Postgraduate	
    Copeland et al.[2]	J Am Acad Child Adolesc Psychiatry	USA	Graduate	
    Huang et al.[14]	Child and Family Social Work.	China	Graduate	
    Wan et al.[4]	Frontiers in Psychiatry	Malaysia	Graduate	
    Isaradisaikul et al.[15]	Korean journal of medical education	Thailand	Graduate	
    Rettew et al.[16]	PLOS ONE	USA	Graduate	
    Lin et al.[17]	BMC Medical Education	Korea	Graduate	
    Chen et al.[18]	Frontiers in Public Health	Korea-Taiwan	Graduate	
    Martínez et al.[19]	Wiley Periodicals LLC	Mexico	Postgraduate	
    Li et al.[20]	Frontiers in Psychology	China	Graduate	
Year 2022	6	37.75%		
    Gallegos et al.[21]	Family Relations	USA	Graduate	
    Abdolkarimi et al.[7]	Frontiers in Psychology	Iran	Graduate	
    Albani et al.[22]	Wiadomosci lekarskie	Greece	Graduate	
    Hobbs et al.[23]	PLOS ONE	United Kingdom	Graduate	
    Büyükçolpan and Ozdemir[8]	Current Psychology	Turkey	Graduate	
    Datu et al.[24]	Journal of American College Health	Philippines-USA	Graduate	
Total	16	100%		

In relation to the journals, 13 journals were detected that have been published on these topics. In addition, the journal PLOS ONE showed 3 articles, followed by the journal Frontiers in Psychology with two articles and the others with one article.

Figure 2 shows the subthemes identified, with percentages for each. These were organized into nine categories (psychological impact, adverse childhood experiences, stress, personality traits, perception of educational environment, spiritual health, distress, uncertainty and socioemotional learning, and satisfaction with life).

Figure 2 Identified subtopics and their percentages

In general, it is observed that the most studied subtopic was the psychological impact on university students (n = 37.5%), followed by stress (18.75%). The other topics considered were at 6.25%.

Discussion

The aim of this study was to analyze the bibliometric indicators of scientific productivity of studies related to the impact of COVID-19 on the constructs affecting the happiness of young university students. The results have shown that the number of countries that have published original scientific articles on the impact of COVID-19 on factors affecting happiness was 12. Most of them were carried out in the USA and China (n = 6, 37.5%), followed by some countries in Europe (England, Greece), Asia (Turkey, Thailand, Malaysia) and Central America (Mexico), respectively.

In general, with the discovery of a new infectious coronavirus disease (COVID-19) and the pandemic in 2019, many countries in the world have prioritized and driven the development of research. Those have been from vaccines, as well as treatments, issues related to patient transport safety, occupational safety of health professionals, biosafety of laboratories and facilities, social security, and food safety.[25] As well as the consequences it produces on the mental health and social well-being of students.[262728]

In fact, the USA, due to the size of its economy and the level of research development, has long been a world scientific leader,[29] this manages to confirmed and allows to contrast with the results of this bibliometric study. Even China, in recent years, has also developed research on the consequences of the pandemic in various populations.[303132] This places both countries with higher scientific productivity.

These findings are corroborated by studies of similar characteristics, where the USA and China were the countries with the highest number of publications during the pandemic. Both play a crucial role in mental health research related to the COVID-19 outbreak worldwide.[26]

The emergence of COVID-19 has caused a downward spiral in human mental health due to its cumulative effect on existing mental stressors.[33] From that perspective, this study reviewed 13 scientific journals that have published on the impact of COVID-19 on the constructs affecting university students’ happiness. In addition, there were nine subthemes categorized subtopics (psychological impact, adverse childhood experiences, stress, personality traits, perception of educational environment, spiritual health, distress, uncertainty and socioemotional learning, life satisfaction). Overall, the psychological impact on university students was addressed by six studies (37.5%), followed by three studies (18.75%) that investigated academic stress. The other categories were published by seven journals (i.e., one topic in each journal). We also highlight that the journals PLOS ONE and Frontiers in Psychology were the ones that published a total of five original articles related to the happiness of university students.

These results showed that the number of journals that published 16 studies in the PubMed database on the impact of COVID-19 on the constructs affecting university students’ happiness is small. A larger number of scientific articles and journals promoting research on the impact of COVID-19 on students’ happiness was expected. However, both researchers and scientific journals have initially prioritized publications from secondary sources,[25] and approximately half of the early publications during the pandemic were review articles, letters, editorials, and other types of papers.[18]

Overall, bibliometric results from recent studies suggest that, although scientific output is much higher than during previous epidemics,[34] the rapid and timely accumulation of knowledge and empirical evidence is critical. Therefore, making decisions based on published scientific evidence is essential for policymakers as well as emergency managers facing this crisis.[25] In addition, this type of information can be critical for universities to prepare for and address the ongoing effects of the pandemic on the mental health of their students and faculty in general.[2]

This bibliometric study presents some strengths related to changes in life circumstances due to the pandemic. In addition, the studies have reflected changes in happiness and life satisfaction among young university students, thus revealing new lines of future research. This situation provides an opportunity to analyze the current panorama of scientific journal publications, thus highlighting the importance of bibliometrics. This will make it possible to determine trends, identify topics and subtopics of publications within a research discipline. In this way, the whole community will benefit, both researchers and society in general.[34] In addition, these results can serve as a baseline for future research, since subthemes related to happiness in university students have been labeled.

Notwithstanding the above, a possible limitation of the study is that a single database (PubMed) was used and that cross-sectional studies were considered. Both aspects could have biased the results of this study, so future bibliometric studies should take these aspects into account.

Conclusions

In conclusion, this bibliometric study suggests that the number of countries and scientific journals that have published original scientific articles on the impact of COVID-19 on the constructs affecting the happiness of university students is small. In addition, psychological impact and stress were the subthemes identified that affected the happiness of university students during the pandemic. These results suggest that universities and researchers should be prepared to address the changing and continuing pandemic factors on mental health among their students.

Financial support and sponsorship

Universidad Nacional del Altiplano de Puno.

Conflicts of interest

There are no conflicts of interest.

Acknowledgments

The authors are grateful for the support of the Instituto de Investigación Social y Empresarial of the Universidad Nacional del Altiplano de Puno, Peru.
==== Refs
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